ISRAELIS WIDENING ROLE IN ETHIOPIA

By JANE PERLEZ, Special to The New York Times

Published: February 7, 1990

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, Jan. 31—
In an effort to support the last non-Arab presence on the Red Sea, Israel has increased its diplomatic and military links with the embattled Marxist-Leninist Government here, diplomats say.

The Government of Lieut. Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam needs to be supported against secessionist rebels in coastal region of Eritrea who would turn the ''Red Sea into the Arab Sea,'' the new Israeli Ambassador here said.

The Eritreans are not Arabs, but Ethiopian and Israeli officials contend that they are supported militarily by Arab governments. The leadership of the rebel Eritrean People's Liberation Front is predominantly Christian, but about half the region's population is Muslim, a fact that the Addis Ababa Government has always emphasized.

Western diplomats say Arab countries sympathetic to the Eritreans have responded to a recent appeal from the rebels, saying that with Israel on the side of Ethiopia, the rebels need help more than ever.

Washington has taken a dim view of Israel's assistance. Some officials say the Israeli help will serve only to prolong the Ethiopian civil war, now nearly three decades old.

U.S. View Differs from Israel's

The Ethiopian Government is pressed by rebellions based in Eritrea and Tigre province, divided within itself and practically bankrupt. From Washington's point of view, it appears to be in a terminal stage of collapse and not worth propping up. One American official called the Government a ''dead duck'' and described the strategic value of Ethiopia to the United States as vastly diminished as the Cold War winds down.

Israeli officials, including the new Ambassador here, paint a different picture.

Ambassador Meir Joffe, newly arrived here after a 16-year break in relations, He said it was strategically vital for Israel that the rebels not turn the ''Red Sea into the Arab Sea.''

''You just have to look at a map to see the importance to Israel,'' he said in an interview. If the Eritrean rebels were able to win independence, the Red Sea would be under Arab influence, Mr. Joffe asserted.

He claimed that the rebels get most of their supplies from radical Arab countries, including Libya and Syria. But many Western diplomats agree that the vast majority of the Eritreans' supplies are captured from the Addis Ababa Government.

The Chief of Staff of the Israeli Army, Gen. Dan Shomron, visited Ethiopia last month with an Israeli military delegation to assess Ethiopian needs, Western and East Bloc diplomats based here said.

Helping Christians Kill Christians

Already, these diplomats say, Israel is believed to have supplied President Mengistu with cluster bombs for use against the Tigre People's Liberation Front, which is not a separatist movement but rather seeks the overthrow of the Addis Ababa Government.

The State Department has said it has no proof that Israel delivered the bombs, and Israel and Ethiopia have denied the reports. But Western officials here say that descriptions of bombed areas in Wollo province conform with the kind of damage done by cluster bombs.

Military attaches in foreign embassies in Addis Ababa report that several hundred Israeli military trainers have arrived to boost the struggling Ethiopian Army.

An Eastern European diplomat said he had seen an Ethiopian Army brigade in training with Uzis, the Israeli-made assault rifles. Western diplomats say they have had credible reports that the Tigre rebels have captured Uzis from Government soldiers in recent battles. But Israel has denied giving automatic rifles to the Ethiopians.

Israeli officials have acknowledged supplying small arms to the Ethiopian Army. In one account, an Israeli official said that 150,000 bolt-action rifles had been given for militiamen fighting the Tigre insurgency.

The Tigre rebels are Christian Ethiopians, and do not present the Arab threat perceived by the Israelis. But the Tigreans have cooperated with the Eritrean rebels, and it appears that the Israeli Government has decided that its best course is to support the Addis Ababa Government against all challengers.

A History of Cooperation

Israeli assistance to Ethiopia is not new. Seeing Ethiopia as a bulwark against a Muslim tide, Israel aided the Government of Emperor Haile Selassie until his ouster in 1973, when relations between the two countries were broken.

Even after the break in relations, informal connections continued between the two countries. When Somalia invaded Ethiopia in 1977, Israel secretly supplied Ethiopia with military assistance, deliveries that were cut when they became public.

From the Ethiopian point of view, the Israeli relationship is helpful not only militarily but also diplomatically. It is through Israel that Ethiopia hopes to persuade Congress to lift the ban on American economic and development aid to Ethiopia.

Representative Mickey Leland, the Texas congressman killed in a plane crash while visiting Ethiopia last year, was hoping to set up an Israeli agricultural project that would be funded in part by American philanthropic interests. These plans are now being pursued by Senator Al Gore, a Tennessee Democrat.